Gave Stargate: Universe a Shot...

[Alyeska]

And that is a clear failing. What makes it even more disappointing is that it was cancelled after it started to reverse the trend. I honestly think the ratings would have been up in season 3. But its too late.

I do think SGU went out on a high note. They had a fantastic 2nd half of season 2. Even better, the writers knew that the finale to season 2 might be the series finale, so they wrote an appropriate episode to fit.

[Skgoa]

SGU's biggest sin was not being Stargate. I don't understand how this can be so difficult to grasp, so I will spell it out:
Stargate was about a group of intelligent, likable characters going on adventures and being heroes, most of the time saving Earth/the Galaxy/whatever with SCIENCE. Atlantis was basicaly more of the same, though they managed to recapture that sense of wonder and "stepping into the unknown" that SG had lost in its later years and did away with Stargate's more boring elements. Universe was... about a bunch of whiny self-destructive idiots. They were absolutely unlikable, their stupidity was so annoying that I wanbted to just reach into the tv and just smack them. SGU was nBSG transplanted into the Stargate universe. (And now we know where that name came from...) A show that insults it's audience's intelligence isn't "slow to find it's footing", its just stupid. And I don't want to watch a stupid darker-and-edgier whinefest with a cast solely made of stupid whiny bitches and stupid predictable DRAMADRAMADRAMA cookie-cutter plots. I want to watch Science Fiction.

[JME2]

SGU's biggest sin was not being Stargate. I don't understand how this can be so difficult to grasp, so I will spell it out:
Stargate was about a group of intelligent, likable characters going on adventures and being heroes, most of the time saving Earth/the Galaxy/whatever with SCIENCE. Atlantis was basicaly more of the same, though they managed to recapture that sense of wonder and "stepping into the unknown" that SG had lost in its later years and did away with Stargate's more boring elements. Universe was... about a bunch of whiny self-destructive idiots. They were absolutely unlikable, their stupidity was so annoying that I wanbted to just reach into the tv and just smack them. SGU was nBSG transplanted into the Stargate universe. (And now we know where that name came from...) A show that insults it's audience's intelligence isn't "slow to find it's footing", its just stupid. And I don't want to watch a stupid darker-and-edgier whinefest with a cast solely made of stupid whiny bitches and stupid predictable DRAMADRAMADRAMA cookie-cutter plots. I want to watch Science Fiction.

Fair enough.

I do sympathize with Wright and company, though. They could have chosen to repeat the familiar, yet worn-out style of 12 years of SG-1/SGA or tried something new, yet alien to the fans. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I've said it before, but there shouldn't be a fourth series -- current state of the franchise aside. The concept can only be recycled and tweaked so many times. I also don't know what else they could do.

[Stofsk]

The biggest thing that hurts sci-fi franchises these days is the need to tie in a continuing story arc that involves some badass villain who is all-powerful and needs to be defeated no matter the cost... when one of the premises of the setting is you can go anywhere, do anything with the gate system.

There really is no reason to keep inventing more and more all-powerful bad guys every season like SG-1 did (and I guess SGA did as well?) only to defeat them with a DEM at the end of the year. The premise of Destiny was actually an interesting one- stuck on a giant spaceship on the other side of the universe that's stuck on autopilot, and the survivors are trying to find a way home. But they messed it up by having flat characters no-one could give a shit about.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

My wife and I are huge Stargate fans, but we life science fiction in general, too. The reason we gave up on SGU about 7 episodes in wasn't because it was not Stargate, but because it was not enjoyable to watch. Nothing was happening. Most of the characters were annoying. There was no sense of an over-arching plot beyond "shit gonna get worse". There wasn't even that much science fiction going on. The show should have given us some reason to watch it. We wanted to like it, but the show was trying to be gritty and unpleasant. Mission accomplished. Basically it became Stargate: Galactica by default.

"Hey, guys, I got this great idea for a show! We take a beloved franchise that's in a rut and then we refurbish it by making it about human drama. And when I say human drama, I mean soap opera douchebags. Then we can strip away any sense of fun from the series and make the audience feel bad to be alive. How can it possibly fail?"

I'm still interested in trying to find the second season and watching it, but my wife won't go for that idea at all and I wouldn't want to watch it if we don't watch it together. Besides, we still have Farscape to watch.

[Crazedwraith]

The biggest thing that hurts sci-fi franchises these days is the need to tie in a continuing story arc that involves some badass villain who is all-powerful and needs to be defeated no matter the cost... when one of the premises of the setting is you can go anywhere, do anything with the gate system.

On the other hand if they don't have an overreaching arc. People just complain that its 'nothing but filler'

[Batman]

How can it be 'nothing but filler' when there isn't a story arc? 'Filler' indicates they're just killing airtime until the next plot-related episode comes along and you can't have that if there is no plot.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

How can it be 'nothing but filler' when there isn't a story arc? 'Filler' indicates they're just killing airtime until the next plot-related episode comes along and you can't have that if there is no plot.

TNG made filler for whole seasons.

[Alyeska]

SGU's biggest sin was not being Stargate. I don't understand how this can be so difficult to grasp, so I will spell it out:

Your opinion is fact and over rides my opinion? Thank you for making that very clear to me. You have completely convinced me that I am a fucking moron.

[Skgoa]

Oh no, someone dared to voice an oppion that is different from yours! He shouldn't be allowed to do that, since this isn't a forum, after all.

Fair enough.

I do sympathize with Wright and company, though. They could have chosen to repeat the familiar, yet worn-out style of 12 years of SG-1/SGA or tried something new, yet alien to the fans. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The problem is that they did not just do something differently. DS9, VOY and ENT had new and interesting premises and kept Star Trek going far longer than "lets follow the adventures of starship Enterprise" would have merited. Atlantis did something new by being set on an ancient space ship city where the cast had to fend for themselves with no assistance from earth. Futurama is another excelent example of a spin-off that mixed it up and was far superior due to that.
Now Universe: as others have already said, it was just bad. It kept superficial elements of the frenchise in order to pretend to be Stargate, but on absolutely no level it was. The characters are STUPID FUCKING CUNTS, the dialog is neither intelligent nor funny, the plots are predictable by just asking yourself "what would have to happen right now to get the most drama and conflict?"... This show so desperately tried to be darker-and-edgier, to catch a "younger audience". And they failed abysmally, because boring whinefests in dark lighting aren't darker-and-edgier. This is nothing new. Indeed, this is exactly what nBSG did - but they had better music, better effects, slightly better dialog and better actors.
edit/ What I mean is: they are so many things they could have done set in the Stargate 'verse. Or they could just have acknowledged that they were doing something entirely different and not called it a Stargate show. IMO in the later case it would have been canceled sooner, though.

[Alyeska]

Oh no, someone dared to voice an oppion that is different from yours! He shouldn't be allowed to do that, since this isn't a forum, after all.

No. You declared your opinion as fact. You don't have to like SGU. But telling me why I shouldn't have liked it strikes me as arrogant.

[Kingmaker]

I disagree that SGU's greatest flaw was not being Stargate. That was just another nail in the suckwood coffin. I applaud the creators of Stargate for wishing to try something new, but if this was their idea of how to take Stargate in a new direction, maybe they should have let it die a quiet death with SGA. IMO, the first season of SGU compares unfavorably to the first seasons of SG1 and SGA; SG1 had a rocky first season but was decent enough to garner some goodwill from fans who wanted to see more, and SGA had an established format, decently likable characters, a decent pilot, and a clear antagonist. I think the lack of a clear, threatening antagonist was another failing of SGU. The Lucian Alliance was absent for much the first season, and blue man group were rather late to the party and not a persistent threat. I think that contributed to the generally listless atmosphere of the show and drew our attention to how unlikable many of the characters were.

Beyond that, I don't think there's a whole lot more to say on the subject of why SGU sucks or doesn't.

[Alyeska]

Do people forget the nBSG miniseries? That got roasted to hell and back. Season 1 started good, the the miniseries was not well appreciated when it had released.

[Thanas]

Yeah, but unlike SGU, they improved. The best episode of SGU was the pilot and it sucked. (I can only speak for the first season though).

[Alyeska]

Yeah, but unlike SGU, they improved. The best episode of SGU was the pilot and it sucked. (I can only speak for the first season though).

I really recommend watching the 2nd season. The finale was truly well done. There was worth while character growth in many of the characters and some awesome episodes. Rush didn't grow, but his willingness to actually work with others did change.

[Alyeska]

To each their own. I actually liked the majority of SGU. It was different. SGA was a rehash of SG1 in so many ways, but started going off into dark territory of Voyager plot devices. SGU certainly had its faults. They tried to be like BSG, but the wrong part of BSG.

People liked BSG. But people bitched at the personal drama that started to build up. We had character development without an over abundance of personal drama in the first season of BSG, and for the most part season 2. But it got really bad in season 3 and kept on plodding along in season 4. Pointless angst and drama, everyone is flawed to the point of questionable sanity.

What people liked about the start of BSG was the grittiness. Not everything is clean. Characters are flawed, but real. They solve problems as they come, and some times things go to shit. Oh, and did I mention that Galactica got to blow shit up, and Vipers got to shoot shit?

SGU picked the wrong part of BSG to emulate while providing not a whole lot of action. And it kept making things worse and worse for the Destiny crew without giving them any reasonable means to compensate. Destiny was getting beat up and couldn't really be repaired. It was just going to get worse unless they used a magic reset button, which they did twice to get new shuttles.

[Thanas]

Yeah, but unlike SGU, they improved. The best episode of SGU was the pilot and it sucked. (I can only speak for the first season though).

I really recommend watching the 2nd season. The finale was truly well done. There was worth while character growth in many of the characters and some awesome episodes. Rush didn't grow, but his willingness to actually work with others did change.

No thanks. Not after that massive crapfest that was Season 1.

[Stofsk]

The biggest thing that hurts sci-fi franchises these days is the need to tie in a continuing story arc that involves some badass villain who is all-powerful and needs to be defeated no matter the cost... when one of the premises of the setting is you can go anywhere, do anything with the gate system.

On the other hand if they don't have an overreaching arc. People just complain that its 'nothing but filler'

I think the main point I want to make is if you're going to do an overarching plot you need to do it right. Something like Babylon 5? Done right. Something like how Buffy where the big bad evil guy continually escalates each season to ludicrous proportions? Not right. SG-1 I guess falls under the latter, at least in the final two seasons from what I understand. But I am no expert on SG-1. One day I'd like to actually watch it from start to finish.

TNG made filler for whole seasons.

The difference being that the characters were excellent and you grew to love them the more you saw of them. An episodic series vs one with a continuing plot arc both depend on having great characters who are engaging to watch.

[Stark]

There's a differnce between havign an overarching plot and just saying 'this year we fight APOPHIS!!!!' A plot isn't a stupid catchphrase or levelling up your battleships or whatever - it's supposed to be about characters and drama and events. It doesn't help that shit arcs (like 'kill abc' or 'what could xyz mean') end, and the show may not.